Current Members in Marineland of the Pacific GuestBook
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Date

July 1, 2003

Name

Erin

Email

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City

Palos Verdes

State

CA

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Comments

Hello!
Can't wait for your site to open. Yes, I have lots of things that you may be intersted in. I would love to see them displayed and cared for. I worked at Marineland in the mid 70's and have very fond memories. When will the site be up so I can join the historical society?
Thank you.

When I wasn't working at Marineland, I was hanging out there.I have MUCH Marineland stuff. Is the museum going to be a physical location? I always assumed my collection would go to the P.V. historical society.

Date

July 4, 2003

Name

MOTPHS

Email

Home Page

marinelandofthepacific.org

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State

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Comments

Hi Leslie:
Thank you for your interest in the Marineland of the Pacific Historical Society, and for your support in making your collection available to the public. Presently, we are in the process of gathering information and building our infrastructure to support the site. Please send along a listing of the items that you have and we'll review it. We'll be in contact after that. Have a wonderful 4th of July holiday!
Patrick Helbling, Executive Director, MOTPHS

Have many photos of marineland from the 60's and 70's as well as post cards and some souvenir california kitchen textiles that show the former park. Would donate them to you.

Date

July 12, 2003

Name

MOTPHS

Email

Home Page

City

State

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Comments

Hi Pam:
Thank you for your interest in Marineland of the Pacific, and for your generous offer of a donation to the Historical Society. We'll be contacting you directly at the e-mail address that you provided for details on completing the donation, as well as sending along the necessary paperwork to formally acknowledge receipt of the donation. Those items selected for display will list you as the curator (unless you prefer to remain anonymous.) Thank you again for your support of Marineland of the Pacific and for helping to preserve this part of California's history.

i was going though some boxes and i came across a cup and saucer set from Marineland of the Pacific. there is a number on the back. picture upon request. thank you, stephanie

Date

July 15, 2003

Name

MOTPHS

Email

Home Page

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Hi Stephanie:
Thank you for contacting us about the gift shop items that you came across; we would love to see a picture of it. We'll send you another e-mail directly to the address you provided, and you can attach a picture of the items to your message. Although the site is not attempting to catalogue every single gift shop item, we do feel there is merit to catagorizing those items of particular appeal. Thank you again for your support of Marineland of the Pacific, and for helping to preserve this part of California's history. Our very best to you!

Hi Mike:
Good to hear from you. Thanks for stopping by the website, and for your continuing interest in helping to preserve the memories of the oceanarium. We would be very interested in looking at your photographs from the 1970's - lots of history, ownership changes, new exhibits, etc. occurred during this decade. We'll send you another e-mail directly to the e-mail address that you provided with a few more details. Thanks again for visiting the site. Your support and interest is greatly appreciated. Have a nice evening.

I just acquired serveral Marineland of the Pacific - Information Sheet and Scheduke of Events single sheet flyers. These fold in the center (They are 8-1/2" x 11" size) making four 5-1/2" x 8-1/2" pages. These are printed on a beige color paper in brown ink. Basic information is on the front page. Inside one page has the schdule of events the other shows the park layout with the different buildings numbers and the names. The back has a map and directions to the park. These look almost new, but do not have a date shown anywhere. One price shown is for rooms at the Marineland Motel, $12.00 for a double and $10.00 single both with a "breath-taking view". If you would be interested in a couple of these let me know. Thanks, Mike

Hi Michael:
Thank you for contacting us regarding the Information Sheet and Schedule of Events. Most of these handouts were printed on white paper with blue ink, and the motel information that you supplied would indicate that your edition was probably circulated in the early 1970's. Another way to check would be to look at the inside show schedule and see what animals are performing. The names of the animals changed over the years, and can help to better define the year(s). Yes, we would be delighted to have a couple of copies for the collection. We'll send you another e-mail with a mailing address, and we'll reimburse you the postage. Thank you for visiting the site, and for your kind donation. Come back again soon.

Hi Eko:
Good question. There were actually several addresses used by Marineland over the many years it was in operation. In 1955, the visitor's color booklet listed the address as:
Marineland of the Pacific
Palos Verdes Drive South
Portuguese Bend, Marineland, California
In 1959, in the revised visitor's guide it was listed as:
Marineland of the Pacific
Palos Verdes Drive South
Palos Verdes Estates, Calif.
In 1960, an envelope contained the following return address:
Marineland of the Pacific
Palos Verdes Drive South
Marineland, California
The Articles of Incorporation do not list a physical address for the oceanarium itself. Thanks for stopping by! Hope this helps you out.

I have several brochures and guidebooks, some salt and pepper shakers from the gift shop, and number of pictures. I'd love to talk to you about these.
The giant fish tank and killer whale tank had an unusual design: there was a shelf 10 feet wide, 15 feet beneath the water line. This meant the killer whale tank was 80 feet in diameter down to 15 feet, then only 60 feet across down the maximum depth of 22 feet. The giant fish tank was 100 feet by 50 feet down to 15 feet deep, then shrunk to 80 by 30. Do you know why these tanks were designed that way?
David C. Powell, a former aquarist at Marineland, wrote a great book called "A Fascination for Fish" (University of California Press, 2001, ISBN 0-520-22366-7). Chapter 2 chrinicles Mr. Powell's experiences collecting for Marineland. Very intersting, I highly recommend it!
The late Dr. Kenneth Norris wrote extensively about his experiences at Marineland; I think his book was called "The Porpoise Watcher", but I'm not sure. It was published in the 1960s.

Bill: Good to hear from you. Thanks for taking the time to write. Would enjoy knowing what specific brochures you have, as well as any gift shop items. We're primarily interested in photographing images (certainly as far as gift shop items are concerned), so whatever specifics you have on your items will help us determine if we already have the item cataloged. As for the tank construction, my belief is that is was purely a structural requirement, with some added benefits. According to veteran diver Jake Jacobs in his book Marineland Diver, he states "Both main tanks are shaped like gargantuan layer cakes, inverted, and with the layers graduated in size, so that the larger layers come on top. This method of construction gives a closer view of the less active bottom-dwellers and encourages a better vertical distribution of the specimens than straight-sided tanks would." (p.118) Thanks for writing!

Hi Drina! Thanks for stopping by the site. The staff here appreciates hearing from you and your fond recollections of the park. We're very excited about the overwhelming support we've received from so many other people that have provided photographs, gift shop items, audio and video tapes, slides, movies...you name it. Our mission is to catalogue and showcase the park for the future, and we at the Historical Society appreciate your kind words of support. We're plugging along here, and plan to roll out more of the site as the time goes on. Thank you again for stopping by, and we wish you the very best!

When I was younger, I had gone to Marineland and thus my love of sealife started! I am currently 28 and was probaly 5 or 6 when I went to the magical Marineland. I was delighted as it overlooked the Pacfic Ocean and if course seeing the Killers Whale and such...just made me a happy little girl. Recently I have been looking for pictures of Marineland when it was open and making kids smile...then I found this web site. I don't know if anyone knows of this site..http://www.marinelandofthepacific.org..take a peek at it. Type of Marinland and you will see modern pictures of the site now. It made me VERY sad but finding this web site cheered me up.
Thanks for tht great website!

Hi Kelly: Thank you for finding our website! We're glad that the pictures brought back happy memories for you when you visited as a child. Due to the overwhelming support of our visitors, we've catalogued hundreds of photos, slides, film and other images of the park. We're working hard to get more of them them onto the sight; so check back periodically. Wishing you the very best, and thanks again for stopping by!

I worked at / hung around Marineland from 1976 to the end 1n 1987, when I accepted a job at Sea World San Diego. Your site is looking good. FYI - There is a Marineland Reunion thursday, Nov 20th, 2003 in Long Beach, CA. Former employees and friens are getting together in conjunction with the International Marine Animal Trainer's Association conference which is being hosted by the Aquarium of the Pacific.
Long Beach Hyatt Regency
200 South Pine Ave
6:00pm to 10:00pm
$40.00 per person
The RSVP date was November 12th, but if you belong, I'm sure you'd be welcome.
To see a copy of the invitation, visit: www.pacificbeachlife.com/marineland/reunion.pdf

My dad was the chief announcer in the early-mid 60's. I spent my childhood running around back stage at the sealion/dolphin shows. My dad has so much memorabilia from that time. Our dog was used in the boat being pulled by dolphins for the show. My dad is Dick Williams.

Hi Fred: Sorry for the delay in getting back with you. We've been busy on this end, but that's no excuse...so thank you for your patience. Thank you also for the heads-up on the Marineland Reunion. We'll be sure to promote it on our site should you have another one. One thing we'd like to do eventually is have a section of the site dedicated to former employees and staff; kind of a "who were they and what did they do?" section. It would be a bit much to keep it updated with a "what are they doing now", but you get the general idea. Would like to know if you have any programs or other material from the reunion that would list employees/staff names? Your help in this area could get that project started. Thanks again for writing to us, and have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday!

Hi Mary: What a wonderful treasure of personal memories you must have of your dad's career with Marineland. We would love to know what memorabilia you/he has stashed away after all these years. As you know, our primary interest is in cataloging and photographing the images for display on this site, and once we have a better idea of what you have available, we would consider it an honor to make arrangements to catalogue, photograph and display those items in our exhibit collection. Do you by chance have audio recordings of your dad's announcing? Any show scripts, sound effects or park background music? We have quite a collection from the early '70s, but nothing from the '60s; it would be a tremendous addition. Thank you again for writing to us, and we wish you and your family the very best for the Thanksgiving holiday! Bye for now.

Hi John: Hmmmm...we would hope that you would look to our site as the primary source for information (and photos) of Marineland, but respect your position that you'd like them a little bit sooner than we're able to provide. Although the society has collected hundreds of photos from a variety of sources, getting them up on the site has been a little more daunting than anticipated. Rest assured that our staff is working towards that goal. Until then, we would encourage you to look through the general internet search engines under "Marineland of the Pacific." Although specific websites devoted to the oceanarium are few, there are many articles, pictures and the like available out there through a variety of sources...you'll just have to keep looking. Ebay is also another source for pictures of brochures and other memorabilia. Thank you for visiting the site, and come back soon!